A slice of life in Nigeria

This news clipping reminds me of my childhood in Nigeria. Life in Africa's most populous country was loosely similar to an average Western life, people drive cars, drink Coke, watch TV, love sports etc... but it was also one or two degrees removed, better described as an imperfect, slightly edgy copy; with Western ideals imposed on a world not quite ready, or willing to accept a facsimile.
One area of life that exemplifies this slightly altered reality was the news. Although Nigeria went through a series of military dictatorships and coup d'états during my time there, where media was censored to various degrees, it still had a number of daily newspapers. Many were wards of the regime, but there could be some dissension, which would criticize some aspect of corruption and the paper would subsequently be raided, the journalist and editor jailed and the paper put on hold, or shut-down on a sham claim of tax evasion, or a similarly trumped up charge.
Funnily, I remember the unique smell of the papers quite distinctly. It was a chemical mix of cheap paper, runny ink and tropical street life. Not necessarily a bad smell, just a strong one. What really made the papers stand out though, were the stories. Apart from frequent terrible spelling, very flowery and eloquent English, with grand words often misused and strange sentence structure, articles like the one above were all too common.
Stories that would mix animistic and sometimes paranoid beliefs, with incredible police corruption, poor education and sensationalist journalism, could lead to some outlandish tales. I remember once reading a headline that read-"Man's body found decapitated and hacked to pieces with a machete tied in a bag. Police suspect suicide", or the black magic informed hysteria that accompanied stories of people claiming to lose their genitals after shaking hands with someone. This lead to many public beatings as people could accuse enemies, scorned lovers, creditors, debtors...of this "JuJu" in public and a mob would subsequently form and take out street justice on the "victim".
These articles were so memorable and uniquely West African, that mom would cut them out and mail them back to family in Canada, showing them a sliver of what life was like. Although read out of context, without being surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of the country, the stories come across as comical relief rather than informing daily life the way they do for millions.